For education's sake, vote for Obama

By Tyrona Hooker

Wednesday

Oct 31, 2012 at 12:01 AMOct 31, 2012 at 3:26 PM

North Carolinians know a thing or two about the power of education to transform lives.

It was our education system that helped turn North Carolina from a rural, agricultural state into the global center of research and industry that it is today. And for so many families in our state, education has been the path to upward mobility, the difference between a life of getting by and a life of middle-class economic security.

As an educator, I am constantly inspired by the stories of children succeeding against the odds that I see and hear every day. I have also witnessed firsthand the many challenges facing our public schools. Reasonable people can disagree on how to address these challenges, and there is no silver bullet that will solve them all. But we should all be able to agree that education remains the key to a brighter future for our children and grandchildren.

That is why I am supporting Barack Obama for President—and why I call on any parent, student, teacher, school administrator, or citizen who shares my concern about education to join me.

When President Obama took office in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, one of his first acts was to fight for emergency funding that kept tens of thousands of North Carolina educators in the classroom. But the President didn’t just act to prevent a dire situation from becoming worse. He also saw the crisis as an opportunity to make a long-term investment in improving our schools—not by imposing unworkable mandates, but by incentivizing state and local education authorities to take the lead in proposing their own reforms. North Carolina was well positioned to compete for these funds, winning $400 million in the first round of the Race to the Top competition for a far-reaching initiative that will benefit nearly all of our state’s 1.5 million schoolchildren.

The President also recognizes that a good education starts early, before our children even begin school. That’s why his Recovery Act expanded programs like Head Start in North Carolina, which also received $70 million to improve early childhood education through the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge.

Finally, President Obama believes every single child should have access to a quality, affordable higher education, whether at a community college or a university. For him, this belief is personal: the President and First Lady could not have afforded college without taking out student loans, and they understand that many families in this state are in the same position. That’s why he fought to double funding for Pell Grants, benefiting over 5,200 students in Alamance County alone. He fought to expand the largest college tax credit, which gives North Carolina students and their families up to $10,000 for tuition expenses. And he fought to keep student loan interest rates from doubling for more than 170,000 students in this state.

Now, the President has a plan to put 325,000 more teachers back to work immediately, train 100,000 new math and science teachers, and cut the growth of college tuition rates in half—all while continuing to invest in education, from preschool to postgraduate studies.

We simply haven’t seen this kind of commitment from the other side. Mitt Romney may pay lip service to the need to improve our schools, but his proposals would make an already dire situation even worse for North Carolina students. His budget could cut K-12 education by nearly $140 million in North Carolina, resulting in fewer teachers and more crowded classrooms, and eliminate 6,700 Head Start slots in our state. It would also cut Pell Grants by an average of $830 for over 250,000 North Carolina students.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised by these extreme proposals, since Romney also told a group of teachers that class sizes don’t matter and told a student concerned about rising tuition to “shop around.” But after what we’ve been through these past couple years, North Carolina deserves better.

There are many issues at stake in this election, but few issues touch all of our lives like education. And on this issue, the choice is crystal clear: President Obama deserves another four years.

Tyronna Hooker is the 2011-12 North Carolina Teacher of the Year. She most recently taught exceptional children at Graham Middle School in Graham and now directs the Teaching Fellows program at North Carolina Central University in Durham.

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.